Caddie Woodlawn Study Guide & Notes

Caddie Woodlawn Plot Summary

Preview of Caddie Woodlawn Summary:

Caddie Woodlawn is the story of a girl growing up in the American west in the 1860s. Caddie is eleven years old and one of seven children of Harriet and John Woodlawn. The family move to the prairie from Boston, where Harriet grew up. John is born to an English nobleman, who is denied his inheritance for falling in love and marrying a lowly seamstress. John, who truly embodies the pioneering spirit of the 1800s, is a leader in the Dunnville community.

The book traces Caddie's adventures over the course of a year. She is an unusual girl, prone to pranks and playing outdoors with her brothers, Tom and Warren, rather than doing housework and learning more traditional women's work. Caddie's father decides early on to let Caddie run wild, as he watches another daughter, Mary, die on the Wisconsin prairie because she is too frail to handle the conditions....
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